Hiked the standard Northeast ridge route on Elbert on 9/16 and had beautiful weather for the first couple hours. There's a good bit of hiking through the forest, which has always been my favorite part of any of these hikes. Had an inexperienced group with me, so the going was slower than expected, and eventually two of us got a good distance ahead while the others continued at their own pace.

The two of us that went on ahead ended up making the summit, which was sunny off in one direction, but once we gained the summit we saw some pretty nasty looking weather moving in from the opposite side of the mountain. We took a couple pics and headed down just as some snow flakes fell, but the situation quickly got dicey when the thunder started.

We booked it off the top and caught back up with one of the other people in our group, who had nearly reached 14k ft by then and wanted to continue, but I made the call that it was no longer safe to be anywhere near where we were, so we all high tailed it to tree line as fast as we could. I never saw any, but my gf said she saw lightning mixed in with the near whiteout snow squall that was by now accompanied by 30+ mph wind gusts.

Things mostly settled down by the time we got to the trees, aside from some rain and a little light hail, but the experience was a harsh reminder that even this time of year thunderstorms can be a factor, they just also bring snow with them, haha. Getting an early start is still the best chance for having success and beating the weather. Admittedly, I should have set an earlier start time for our hike (we didn't get going until nearly 8:00 am). If we had started even one hour earlier we'd have been fine. Leaving the BV area yesterday to head home, we saw bad weather over Sherman already at 10:00, so I guess you never really know. We did check the forecast ahead of time, even on the way to the trailhead, and there was only a slight chance of afternoon showers. Moral of the story - be safe out there everyone, and know when it's time to be somewhere else.